An archive of letters from Kissinger, as Executive Director of the Harvard International Seminar, to Philip Rice, as Chairman, regarding the 1953 seminar. At this time, the CIA was using the program to launder funds via grants from "privately sponsored programs," and during the same period, Kissinger was covertly working with the FBI.

signedVarious

1953·Cambridge, Massachusetts

by Henry Kissinger

Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1953. Various. "An archive of 12 typed document letters, 8.5"" x 11"", and reports between Henry A. Kissinger and Philip Rice. Includes five signed letters from Kissinger. Dates range from February 26, 1953 to September 28, 1953, and include an overview and a report of the 1953 Harvard International Seminar.
Kissinger, the director and chief fundraiser for the Harvard International Seminars, financed the program completely through grants from private foundations. The mandate for the seminars was to create a program that brought to Harvard rising stars in foreign policy and political, cultural, and literary life from Europe and Asia to school them in American foreign policy, and within certain bounds, to promote ""freedom of exchange,"" reaching beyond the existing exchange program.""The program of the International Seminar is based on the assumption that the real block in America's impact on the world is not displease with specific U.S. policies but a lack of confidence in America's moral stature""The general principles from the ""Report of The Harvard International Seminar"" (which is included in this archive) are as follow:""GENERAL PRINCIPLES --The Harvard International Seminar is designed for a group not reached by any existing exchange program…It is our belief that a meeting of the most promising representatives of this group in an atmosphere like that of Harvard, created by a privately sponsored program, would go far to promote a better appreciation of common problems and of America's deeper values.""Aside from the inherent success of the program, it also sought controversy as it was privately sponsored by outside grants and not by Harvard. By 1967, several of those foundations appeared on the Times' list of CIA conduits. One of them, the Friends of the Middle East, had funneled $243,000 to the Harvard International Seminar. Abigail Collins Fichter, Kissinger's administrative assistant in the 1960s, recalls in Ralph Blumenfeld's Henry Kissinger: The Private and Public Story, that Kissinger ""was running around saying, 'Oh, my God, this is terrible. People are going to say I'm working for the CIA."" Kissinger may not have fully comprehended his CIA connections because the agency often laundered its funds through a series of foundations to obscure their origins. But the disclosure in 1953 of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) document shows that Kissinger consciously sought and directly worked with the FBI while at Harvard. On July 10, the FBI recorded his name in its memo, identifying him simply as a ""teacher at Harvard University” … “called the FBI, reported he had information of interest to the bureau and asked that an agent call him back.” That afternoon an SAC (the FBI code word for Special Agent in Charge) interviewed Kissinger, who explained that he directed the International Seminar, which included persons from foreign countries who ""are highly placed economically and politically in their own nation."" " (Inventory #: 60861)

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